Chapter 16: The Adaptive Gender: Female CEOs, Board Context, and the Completion of M&As in the U.S. Food Industry

Studies on female managers (e.g., Adams & Ferreira, 2009; Terjesen, Sealy, & Singh, 2009) including, for example, the broader upper echelons (UE) literature (Hambrick & Mason, 1984), argue that a manager’s gender is an important factor in strategic decision-making. Also, it has been proposed that the relationship between demographic features of decision-makers, such as gender and strategic decisions, may be sensitive both to the type of decision and to contextual factors including the organization’s internal environment. Against this background we explore whether and how male and female CEOs are differently affected by board contextual features such as size and gender composition (i.e., whether and to what extent women are represented on the board) when they make decisions that critically impact the functioning of organizations. Thereby, we add yet another facet to the literature that has examined how having women on boards influences fundamental aspects of organizational behavior, structures, and processes.